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POPSdepression and dreaming link very interesting article, these are just quick snippets. even if you have never been seriously down it's good to know. stay preventative people!! :)
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POPSGeek vs. Nerd vs. Dork I don't know if I agree with everything in here, but the list is pretty spot on for the most part... I definitely define myself as a geek, and match up pretty well with that here :)
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POPSClues to Why We Dream at All ... In a recent paper in Psychological Bulletin, Dr. Nielsen and Dr. Levin proposed that dreaming served to create what they call “fear extinction memories,” the brain’s way of scrambling, detoxifying and finally discarding old fearful memories, the better to move on and make synaptic space for any novel threats that may show up at the door. “The brain learns quickly what to be afraid of,” Dr. Nielsen said. “But if there isn’t a check on the process, we’d fear things in adulthood we feared in childhood.” Ordinary bad dreams rarely recapitulate unpleasant events from real life but instead cannibalize them for props and spare parts, and through that reinvention, Dr. Nielsen explained, the fears are defanged. “A bad dream that doesn’t lead to awakening is successful in dealing with intense emotion,” he said. “It’s disturbing, but there is some kind of resolution to the extent we don’t wake up.” ...
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POPSWhat if everything you believe is Wrong? Retrospect and reflection are priceless. It's easy to cherish a belief that we are not prepared to challenge. Like a crab that needs to shed it's shell to grow, for a short time is soft and vulnerable. Soon it is harder, stronger and bigger. (unless it's a Hermit crab, with a new shell ready) One of the keys to the manner in which we challenge our beliefs is through learning and experience. Without the unknown to draw us forward, we would run around in circles. Consider the way a child sees the world. It can be valid, but sometimes beliefs belong in the domain of children. Children can believe a man they barely know gives them gifts for Christmas. There comes a time in their life that they have to admit not so much that this is a fiction, but that the truth has been that their parents have had to work to get the money to get the gifts, with absolutely no credit. (Sorry, I should write Recognition. Credit and Christmas are Mortal enemies)
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POPSRare but Real: People Who Feel, Taste and Hear Color "If you ask synesthetes if they'd wish to be rid of it, they almost always say no. For them, it feels like that's what normal experience is like. To have that taken away would make them feel like they were being deprived of one sense." -- Simon Baron-Cohen, synesthesia researcher at the University of Cambridge
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POPSPresident Barack Hussein Obama - Reality feels like a dream I am laughing with joy and crying. I've cried so much, even during McCain's speech. Another dream fulfilled - the dream since I was eight years old. I wish my mother was alive. She ran away from the Jim Crow south shortly after her first cousin, my cousin, a man named Huey was tortured and lynched. Thanks everyone who helped make this dream come true. I love you all.
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POPSTop 10 Inspirational Quotes "9. Nora Roberts If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place. 10. Stephen Covey Begin with the end in mind"
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POPSDéjà vu: Where fact meets fantasy "Déjà vu can happen to anyone, and anyone who has had it will recognise the description immediately. It is more than just a sense that you have seen or done something before; it is a startling, inappropriate and often disturbing sense that history is repeating, and impossibly so. You can't place where the earlier encounter happened, and it can feel like a premonition or a dream. Subjective, strange and fleeting, not to mention tainted by paranormal explanations, the phenomenon has been a difficult and unpopular one to study. Now that is changing...."
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POPS30 Unusual and Incredible Surreal Artworks Surreal Art has now become a very familiar medium of art and it is growing continuously in its popularity because in this medium of art, artist has much more room to show his creativity and convey his feelings and way of thinking to his audience